


Rocked

by kosmickway (KMDWriterGrl)



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KMDWriterGrl/pseuds/kosmickway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the explosion in the DNA lab, Grissom needs to reevaluate his priorities. A post-ep for "Play with Fire."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rocked

 

His hearing may have been fading in and out but Gil Grissom certainly heard the moment when the DNA lab exploded. 

He had been absent-mindedly studying his phone messages, his mind on the Jason Kent case and the evidence being processed by each of his CSIs when the explosion happened. The rumble and boom, the sound of glass shattering, the wail of the fire alarm, and the hiss of sprinklers all hit his ears at once so that it took him precious seconds to figure out just what, exactly, had happened. 

Out his open office door he saw a tongue of flame licking the wall in the adjacent lab before it was quickly smothered by the fire suppression system.  The hallway was awash in glass, metal, equipment, and rivulets of water.

Exhibiting what he knew most of his employees considered supernatural calm, he picked up the telephone and dialed 911. 

“911, what is your emergency?”

“This is Gil Grissom at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. We’ve just had an explosion here. We need paramedics immediately.”

“Right away, sir. And the address?”

Grissom told her, watching out of the corner of his eye as people began to gather at the site of the explosion. His heart was pounding but he didn’t take the time to acknowledge it. _Cool in a crisis,_ he reminded himself. _Emotionality makes you sloppy._

Spotting the tall, well-muscled form of Nick Stokes in the hall, Grissom motioned for his CSI-III to come inside, knowing he could count on Nick to see to casualties and secure the scene almost as well as he himself would do. 

“Nick, help the wounded if there are any but keep the scene clear. Start diverting people to the exits near the vault and upstairs in the lobby. We’re risking cross-contamination and more injuries if everyone starts rushing in to help. Understand me?”

“Got it, Gris,” Nick acknowledged, and headed into the hallway, calling instructions in his reassuring Texas drawl. 

“Sir,” said the dispatcher on the other end of the phone. “The paramedics are on their way. Try to stay calm.”

“I am calm,” Grissom lied and hung up the phone.   

He didn’t run– running into the middle of a potential arson would do more harm than good. He walked at a fast clip out of his office and came face to face with Warrick Brown and Catherine Willows, both of whom were galloping down the hall. 

“Holy mother--” Warrick exclaimed, his mellow voice rising a notch. He skidded to a stop, his practiced eyes already sweeping for evidence. “What the hell happened?”

Catherine’s thoughts were on a more immediate problem. “Where’s Greg?” She glanced at Grissom, who inclined his head toward the DNA lab, the place he’d seen Greg only moments before. 

“Greg!”  Catherine yelled and took off at a run, her long legs eating up the distance in seconds. Grissom thought about stopping her but knew that there would be no way to restrain her.  

“Where are Nick and Sara?” Warrick demanded. “Doc? Jacqui? Archie?”

“Nick’s waiting for the paramedics,” Grissom responded, starting down the hall. He still was not running.  “I haven’t seen the others yet.”

The look on Warrick’s face clearly indicated that he thought Grissom was deeply under-reacting. Grissom also knew that he could explain to Warrick a hundred times that panic in the face of a crisis never helped anything and that, every time, Warrick would fail to see the point. It was the essential difference between himself and Warrick– the ability to be part of the crisis without letting himself feel involved with it. 

The taller man looked like he wanted to say something, then his eyes went wide and he dashed to the juncture between the lab and the break room where a pair of jean-clad legs was sticking out into the hallway. 

“Sara!” Warrick crouched on the glass covered floor, conscious enough of his job as a CSI not to touch potential evidence but concerned enough with the well being of his colleague to ignore the guideline about not touching victims till the paramedics had arrived. “Sara, you okay?” He leaned over to take her pulse and winced when he saw the gashes on her face from flying glass. 

Grissom’s heart lurched strangely in his chest. Sara was hurt. Funny what the knowledge of that did to him. He glanced down the hallway to where Catherine and Nick were kneeling over Greg Sanders, who was on the floor and out cold. Greg was hurt, too, clearly more so than Sara. He’d been at the epicenter of the explosion, Grissom calculated, and from the position he was lying in it had been his moving body weight that had caused the glass walls between the lab and the hall to shatter.  

Yet knowing Greg was hurt, probably very badly, didn’t set his adrenaline in motion the way the image of Sara with blood on her face did.

Warrick was helping Sara sit up. She looked dazed, her eyes confused and unfocused. There was a deep gash across her forehead, a smaller one on her right cheekbone. Blood was oozing, staining her cheeks red. 

Grissom’s impulse, his first emotional response to the last five minutes, was to kneel down and take Sara’s face in his hands, to see how badly she’d been hurt. It wasn’t just that she was his student and he her mentor. There was more to their relationship, more twists and levels and complexities. Sara meant more to him than he could actually verbalize.  

This past year he had become uncomfortably aware of the intensity of Sara’s attraction to him. Yes, it had always been there, a strong undercurrent in their teacher/student relationship. After all, Sara never did anything in half measures, and that included relationships. But the more he’d forced himself to pull away from his friends, to keep them from noticing his hearing loss, the more Sara had pushed to keep him in her life. 

Her timing couldn’t have been worse. He needed to lean on her but was afraid to let her in. And the more she needed him, the less he could stand to be around her for fear that he’d eventually break their whole friendship into pieces.  

Of all the problems and puzzles that Grissom handled on a day to day basis, human emotion was one of the trickiest. That was why the safest thing to do, in his opinion, was to walk away from it now, a decision that tore at him as he stood there, staring at Sara, wanting badly to take her in his arms, to smooth his fingers over her pale skin, to kiss the blush back into her cheeks.  

“Come on, girl,” he heard Warrick say. “On your feet. Can you walk?”  


“I’m okay,” she said dazedly, trying to get her legs under her. She only managed to get up with Warrick’s help, and then he had to brace her against his shoulder.

“No, you’re not okay yet,” Warrick corrected, supporting her. “But let’s get you cleaned up and you will be.” He helped her out of the mess of glass and water and toward the exit. 

Sara looked over as they passed and her eyes fixed on Grissom. Her expression was pleading. She obviously needed a word of comfort from him, a hand on her shoulder, something she could metaphorically clutch in the face of this new hurt.

He didn’t have words. Not the ones she wanted. He couldn’t find anything to say that would help her except, to Warrick, “Make sure she gets treated as soon as the ambulance gets here.”

He moved off to see about Greg, aware of leaving Sara behind, aware that he’d said and done all the wrong things.

 ***

Grissom walked out with the stretcher. Jacqui, nursing cuts on her face, followed, as did Doc Robbins. Most of the lab staff watched as Greg was wheeled into an ambulance, his back and neck a mass of burns and cuts and frayed skin. 

As the ambulance pulled away, Grissom looked around for the rest of his staff. Catherine and Warrick, he knew, were inside, making a start on the investigation. Nick had asked to make the run to the hospital with Greg. The lab staff was either being sent home on paid leave or being examined by paramedics, with the exception of Doc Robbins who had made his way back to the morgue. Jim Brass was out in the field, as yet unaware of the pandemonium at headquarters. 

He spied Sara sitting on the sidewalk by herself. Her blue t-shirt sported blood stains, the gashes on her face scabbed over enough to have stopped oozing. 

If he wanted to make things right with her the time was now. And it wasn’t even making things right that mattered– not at this point. Watching bright, focused, vivacious Sara staring into space as if she were only half-awake made his gut twist. 

Grissom walked over to her, kneeled in front of her, feeling almost absurdly as if he were about to propose.  “Are you okay?”

It took her a moment too long to focus on him. _Shock_ , his clinical mind noted. _PTSD._

_Not my Sara_ , said another voice, one not so clinical.

“I’m fine,” she replied, voice flat, almost mechanical.

Her left hand was cradled in her lap and she was holding it as she would a baby bird, or something equally as delicate. Leaning forward to touch her wrist, Grissom saw a deep gash running across the meat of her palm, oozing fresh blood. 

“Honey, that doesn’t look good,” he said, concerned. 

Honey? He’d never called Sara “honey” before, not ever. He’d never called Sara anything BUT Sara. Grissom wasn’t one to use terms of endearment. His only way of showing familiarity with someone was to slightly alter their name– Nicky, Cath, Al. He’d never given Sara such a nickname– she didn’t seem to need one. 

“Honey,” he realized, was something new. It was an actual term of endearment, one couples and parents used for people they loved. He could categorize his feelings for Sara as strictly paternal but even he couldn’t make himself believe such an obviously erroneous statement. 

Sara seemed to focus for a moment, then blinked and repeated. “I’m fine. Clean up’s going to be something. We’d better get started.”

Concerned now, really concerned, he met her eyes, trying to make her understand what he was telling her– not about her hand but, in the only way he could, how worried he was about her. 

“You need stitches.”

She winced- _that’s right, she’s afraid of needles_ , he remembered– and shook her head again. 

Keeping his hand on her wrist, Grissom called over his shoulder to a paramedic, “Can you fix her hand, please?”

“Yes sir.” The paramedic was efficient and friendly looking. “Come on with me, Miss.”

Grissom put both hands on Sara’s wrists, pulled her to her feet. She was looking at him again, the same look she’d worn in the hallway before he’d gone off to tend to Greg. A plea for reassurance. 

This time he gave it to her. “I’ll come back to check on you.” 

And he held onto her wrists gently until the paramedic had a firm hold on her, until she was actually pulled from his hands and away from him. 

 ***

Half an hour later, he found Sara sitting inside an ambulance, her head bent over her knees. A paramedic was holding an ice pack on the back of her neck. 

“Sara?” He leaned against the open door. “Are you okay?”

“She just got a little light-headed, sir,” the paramedic reassured him. “She’ll be fine in a minute.”

“Did you hit your head in the explosion?” Grissom directed the question at Sara, wanting to see if she could answer him coherently or not.

“I don’t remember,” she said in that same mechanical tone. “I remember hitting the floor, then blacking out.”

Grissom stepped up into the back of the ambulance to sit next to Sara.

“I’ll hold this for a while,” he said to the paramedic, taking a hold on the ice pack still resting on Sara’s neck. 

“Yes, sir.” The medic stepped out.

Now that they were alone together, Grissom didn’t know what to say. He adjusted the ice pack and looked down at her hands. The left one was bandaged in gauze from her wrist halfway up her palm. 

“Got your hand fixed, I see.”

“Hurt like hell,” she responded. “I hate needles.”

“I know.” He put a hand on her back. “Sara, I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Her face was still averted so he couldn’t see her expression but her voice was puzzled. 

“For not taking you to get fixed up myself.”

“You had to tend to Greg,” she said quietly. “How is he, anyway?”

“Still in the burn unit, getting grafts. Nicky said he’d call when they know something.”

“Know what happened to the lab?” 

“Not yet. Warrick and Catherine are working on it.” Grissom was determined not to let her change the subject. “Sara, I don’t just mean that I’m sorry for not taking care of you today. I’m sorry for pushing you away the last few months.”

She lifted her head. “I’m surprised to hear you admit it.” 

“I can admit when I’ve been wrong,” he said. “And I can also admit that it hasn’t been easy for me these last few months, knowing how mad you’ve been at me, how frustrated and hurt. Sara, you know me well enough to know that I’m telling the truth when I say that I truly haven’t been trying to hurt you.”

“I know that,” Sara replied. “It just makes it harder because you do anyway.”

He reached out and put a hand on her good wrist, compelled to touch her, wanting to make her understand.  “Can you trust me enough to accept that there are some things going on right now that I just don’t feel comfortable sharing with anyone, including you?”

She didn’t look at him but she did nod. “I can trust you that much. It hurts, but I understand.”

“Good. It would be much harder on me if you didn’t.” He wanted to touch her hair, her face, but knew it was too intimate a gesture for either of them to handle right now. “Know that we’ll sort this out, somehow. Just give me some time.”

“Okay,” Sara replied, noncommittal and cool. But it was a yes and that’s what he’d really wanted.  

“Think you can stand up now?”

“I’ll try.” She rose to her feet slowly, testing her equilibrium. Grissom kept a hand on her arm to steady her. 

“Let me help you down,” he told her and hopped to the pavement. He got his hands around her slender waist and lifted her down. “Careful.” He held her as she got her balance. “Okay?” 

Sara took a few cautious steps, wavered, started to sink to the ground. Grissom was at her side in an instant, lifting her easily into his arms. “Let’s get you inside and lying down.” 

 ***

He called the hospital while Doc Robbins was looking over Sara. Greg had second and third degree burns and lacerations on 60% of his back and neck. He was being prepped for skin grafts. Grissom called each of his CSIs to let them know the status of their colleague then looked over the site of the explosion himself. 

He was studying the pattern of glass breakage when Doc Robbins came out of his office, the tap of his crutch on the floor alerting Grissom to his presence long before Robbins said a word. 

“Her blood sugar’s low. That’s what caused the dizziness, at any rate. I got her to drink some orange juice. That should help but she’s going to need some real food, fluids, and rest before long. She’s got some signs of PTSD and shock, but that’s normal for someone who’s just been through a trauma. I checked all her injuries, too. I’d recommend stitches for her face but she said absolutely not. I didn’t want to push the issue. What she really needs, Gil, is to go home and rest. I’d recommend she take a few days off to get back on her feet.” 

“It’s Sara. You know she’ll never do it.”

“That’s why I like my patients. They don’t argue with me.” Robbins smiled thinly. “Make sure you find someone to take her home. I don’t want her driving if she’s blacking out.”

“Don’t worry,” Grissom said, giving his friend a quick look. “Someone will take care of her.”

 ***

He took her home, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. His lab had exploded three hours ago, several of his staff were injured, one seriously enough to require surgery, and he was taking the time to return Sara to her apartment. So much for priorities. 

He walked her upstairs. Neither of them said much. Sara was obviously too tired to talk, and his thoughts were back on Westfall Drive at the lab. He watched as she unlocked the door and turned on the lights. 

Her apartment was a decent size for someone living alone. It was neat and feminine but not prissy, with walls painted eggplant and black framed prints on the walls. Grissom noticed that there were no photos on the shelves or walls, no real sense of a life that contained family or friends. The furniture was minimal, no frills, jazzed up here and there by a beaded throw pillow or plant. It was a nice place but it struck Grissom immediately as being very lonely despite the effort Sara had put into making it look nice.       

“Thanks,” Sara said quietly. “It was nice of you to take the time out from the lab. I know you’d rather be there working on the case than having to babysit me.”

Grissom winced. It was, actually, fairly close to what he’d been thinking in the car and now he felt ashamed of it. 

“You’re my friend, Sara,” he said lamely. “Why wouldn’t I take the time to make sure you’re okay?”

“You haven’t seemed that interested in being my friend lately,” she replied. “But we’ve already been over this, haven’t we?”  

“Yes,” he said gently. “We’ve been over that. I’ve already told you my circumstances. All I can hope for is that you’ll make an effort to understand.” He reached out to touch her cheek, lifted her face so that she was looking at him. “Sara, honey, trust me like you once did.”

She looked at him, surprised. She’d obviously registered his use of the term “honey.” Grissom watched her struggle, not sure whether to say anything about it or not, not sure what to make of the simple two-syllable term of endearment that had fallen so easily from his lips. 

He took her elbow and led her to the sofa. He’d decided something just then and needed the time to work all the details out in his head. “Come sit down. Doc told me to make sure you got some real food. Let me fix you something.”

This unexpected gesture from him seemed to confound her even more. She looked puzzled, then said finally, “Um, sure. There’s not a lot in there to work with, though.”

“I can come up with something,” Grissom assured her and started to familiarize himself with her kitchen. “Got any eggs?”

“In the fridge.”

“And I know you always have veggies around the house.”

“Fridge and pantry.”

“Vegetarian omelets it is, then,” he said. 

Sara watched him putter around her kitchen, gathering supplies. “Shouldn’t you be, well, back at the lab or something?”

“Cath and Warrick can handle it.”

“Yeah, I know they can but I also know you need to be there.”

“At the moment, you’re more important than the DNA lab.” He started to slice vegetables. “Have any sea salt?”

“No, just regular.” She stood up and crossed to the cupboard that held her spices. “Here.”

She started to take a knife from the rack to help chop vegetables but was stopped by Grissom’s hand on hers. 

“No, go sit down. I’m cooking, you’re resting.” When she tried to pick up the knife again, he took her by the shoulders and led her to a seat on the bar stool across the counter from him. “Sit. I’m very serious about this.”

Sara furrowed her brow and stared hard at him. 

“Look, Gris, maybe I hit my head harder than I thought but I feel like I’ve just stepped into the Twilight Zone. I mean, we’re in the middle of an active case with a man who probably traded his girlfriend to his drug dealer to pay off his debts. The lab exploded, Greg’s in the hospital, half our building is cordoned off for an investigation, and yet you’re standing in my kitchen, making omelets, as if everything is completely normal even though we’ve spent the last three months barely speaking to each other. And aside from that you’re all of a sudden calling me honey and making sure I’m eating right.  This isn’t- ” Sara spread her hands in a gesture of surrender. “This isn’t us.”

Grissom stopped chopping celery to meet Sara’s eyes. “You’re right. It isn’t us. And I think it’s a shame that this _isn’t_ us, that we’ve become so wrapped up in our work that taking time to relax and be friends with each other is a foreign concept.”

“It’s never bothered you before now,” Sara said, furrowing her brow. “I mean, I agree that we tend to get too wrapped up but–“ She sighed and shifted position, fingering the bandages on her wrist, “– you’ve made it clear plenty of times, Gris, that, given the choice, you’d rather spend your time with Catherine, or your bugs, or your books than with me. What’s changed?”   

He dropped the knife altogether and sat down across from her. “Today. That’s what changed. Seeing you lying there in the hallway after the explosion with your face cut up and glass in your hair. Knowing that you were hurt made _me_ hurt.”

Grissom frowned, trying to figure out how to get Sara to understand the enormity of this.  “Sara, that’s never happened to me before. I’ve felt _empathy_ , I’ve felt _sympathy_ , but I’ve never felt real pain and fear the way I felt it today.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It made me realize how much time I’ve been wasting trying to pretend that this thing between the two of us doesn’t exist. It made me want to do this differently.”

Sara stared at him, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t get you, Grissom. I really don’t. For that matter I don’t get me either. I should be in your arms right now, kissing you until your brain short circuits and all I really want to do is cry my eyes out.” Tears started to spill over and she swiped at them with her good hand. “Shit. I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

“Delayed reaction to stress. It’s normal. Your emotions are all over the place.” He inwardly winced, wishing he could turn off the scientist for five minutes. To make up for it, Grissom reached for Sara and cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away the tears trailing down her cheeks. “Let’s forget about food, sweetheart. Let’s forget about talking. Let me put you to bed.”

He walked her into the bedroom, sat her on the bed. 

“Let’s get that blood-stained shirt off of you first,” he said. “What do you sleep in?”

Normally Sara would have been deeply amused by the question but she couldn’t even muster a smile. “Tank top. In my top drawer.” She pointed and Grissom opened the drawer to find a stack of neatly folded thin cotton tops in an array of colors. He selected one and handed it to her. 

“Get changed. I’m going to call in to the lab.”

“Why?”

“To tell them I’m taking the next few hours off.”

Sara stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “But Corvallo– Ecklie– Cath and Warrick.”

“They’ll all do just fine without me,” he said firmly and started for the door. “Get changed. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

In the kitchen he put all of the food away and turned off the stove. He _did_ call the lab but it was a short phone call to Catherine, briefly telling her that he was taking some time with one of the injured employees before coming in to continue with the investigation. Although Catherine never asked who it was, he could tell from the sly tone in her voice that she knew exactly who he was spending his time with. 

When he returned to Sara’s bedroom he found her curled up on her comforter, one large pillow under her head, a smaller one supporting her injured hand. He was pleased to see that she was wearing cotton running shorts that showed off her long, slender legs. 

 “You okay?” he asked softly, sitting on the bed next to her. 

“Getting tired.”

“Think you can sleep?”

“No. There’s too much running through my head.” She frowned suddenly and sat up. “I should be at the hospital with Greggo, not here. What kind of friend am I?”

Grissom put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her down. “You need some rest yourself before you can go sit with Greg. Besides, he’s still in surgery. There’s nothing you can do but wait.”

Sara sighed. 

Grissom chuckled. 

“Patience,” he reminded her. Hoping to soothe her, he laid his hand on her forehead and began to stroke her hair. It was a strange gesture for him, something he’d never done to another woman. But with Sara it felt natural. Her skin was cool and pale, the cuts on her forehead and cheeks an angry red. He touched each injury reverently, as if he could heal it with just a brush of his fingers.

Sara sighed contentedly and her eyes slid closed. “Gris,” she murmured

“Sara?” he said in turn, his voice turning her name into a soft caress.

“Will you stay?”

 “Only if you want me to.”

“Stay. Please. If you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind?” He leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead, on her cheeks, on her eyelids, punctuating each touch of his lips with a string of soft words. “Tonight I’m here to be your friend, to protect you. Sleep knowing I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

He took the next step and moved up onto the bed next to her. She moved over to make room for him as if they’d done this a thousand times before. When he was settled, she adjusted her body so that she was curled up against the curve of his hip. He continued stroking her hair, smiling down at her, finally feeling, even in the midst of all outward turmoil, a sense of peace. 

 “Gris?

“Sara.”

“What about tomorrow night?” 

He leaned down and captured her lips in a kiss designed to sear her from the inside out. Sara moaned softly against his mouth, her hips rising involuntarily from the mattress at the rush of heat through her system. He made sure it only lasted a moment, over before she could respond, a deliberate tease. Then he leaned to her ear and whispered,       

“Tomorrow night I’ll be your lover. Tomorrow night we’re going to wear each other out.”

End. 


End file.
